A New Home at the Frick for a Rare Murillo Work

The Frick Collection has always been rich in Spanish paintings, particularly works by Velázquez, El Greco and Goya. The museum’s founder, Henry Clay Frick, bought three canvases by El Greco on his travels to Spain, and they currently hang together as part of “El Greco in New York,” an exhibition organized in collaboration with the Frick, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hispanic Society to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the artist’s death.

But in 1904, before Frick acquired any of these well-known paintings, he bought a self-portrait by the 17th-century Baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. It has remained in his family ever since, hanging at Eagle Rock, “which is no more,” said Ian Wardropper, director of the Frick, referring to the Frick estate in Prides Crossing, Mass., which was demolished long ago.

Frick’s grandson, Dr. Henry Clay Frick II, inherited the Murillo, which dates from around 1650-55, and after he died in 2007 the painting went to Dr. Frick’s widow, Emily T. Frick, who recently decided to give it to the museum.

The portrait depicts the artist as a young man (he was in his 30s when he painted it), a gentleman wearing black with a crisp white collar and a self-assured expression. “Murillo only made two self-portraits,” Mr. Wardropper said. The other, which he painted about 20 years later, belongs to the National Gallery in London. Both have frames that are trompe l’oeil stone on canvas. The earlier self-portrait, Mr. Wardropper said, is deliberately aged, probably reflecting Murillo’s fascination with antiquity, while the one at the National Gallery is in a more pristine state.

The Frick’s painting goes on view in the South Hall, at the foot of the grand staircase, on Tuesday. “We have other great self-portraits, like the late Rembrandt, which dates from around the same time,” Mr. Wardropper said. “Now we will be the only American institution to have one by Murillo.”

LEONARDO’S FIRST STOP

After its extremely successful exhibition “Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Masterpiece Drawings From the Casa Buonarroti” last year, the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., is turning its attention to another Renaissance giant. “Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty” will open at the Muscarelle on Feb. 21, where it will be on view through April 5. Like the Michelangelo show, it will then travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where it will open on April 15.

“The show will consist of more than 30 works, many of which have never been seen in the United States before,” said Aaron de Groft, director of the Muscarelle. “It’s the largest show of his drawings since the 2003 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum.”

Loans are coming from the Uffizi Museum in Florence and the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, and they will be shown alongside eight drawings by Leonardo’s great rival, Michelangelo, which are coming from the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.

“As a university museum, we are about putting together exhibitions that teach ideas and issues,” said John T. Spike, the Muscarelle’s chief curator. This show, he explained, will give visitors a taste of Leonardo’s genius as a thinker and a draftsman. It will include his “Codex on the Flight of Birds,” as well as his “Study for the Head of an Angel,” his preparatory drawing for “The Virgin of the Rocks,” which is at the Louvre. It will also underscore the differences between Leonardo and Michelangelo. “They were social and philosophical opposites,” Mr. Spike said. Michelangelo was the dreamer, Leonardo the scientist.

NEW ART FAIR IN SEATTLE

Despite complaints among dealers and collectors that there are too many art fairs these days, new ones keep cropping up. The latest is scheduled to take place in Seattle, from July 30 through Aug. 2, at the CenturyLink Field Event Center. The Seattle fair will be presented by Vulcan, a company whose founder is Paul Allen, the Seattle collector and co-founder of Microsoft, and Art Market Productions, fair organizers who produce events like the Art Market San Francisco and Texas Contemporary.

Its aim is to make Seattle an art destination by using the city as a backdrop for art, much the way New Orleans does when it hosts Prospect 3, a contemporary-art biennial. The Seattle fair will include about 40 art galleries, and there will also be site-specific installations throughout the city. In addition to exhibiting the usual panoply of contemporary artists, the fair will highlight the Pacific Rim, with Asian galleries showing their own regional contemporary art.

LIFE AFTER SOTHEBY’S

Charles S. Moffett, Sotheby’s vice chairman of Impressionist and Modern art, is leaving the auction house after 16 years there. At many of the important auctions, it was Mr. Moffett who could be seen taking winning telephone bids for such ceiling-shattering amounts as the nearly $120 million paid for Edvard Munch’s 1895 pastel of “The Scream” two years ago.

“I had my 69th birthday in September,” he said. “I want to realize some good ideas while I can.” Mr. Moffett is going back to his museum roots. Before joining Sotheby’s, he was a curator at institutions including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco and the Met, where he organized the 1983 blockbuster “Manet 1832-1883.” He was director of the Phillips Collection in Washington from 1992 to 1998.

“I am going to be a private curator for a few people with whom I have had relationships, mainly museum trustees,” he said, explaining that rather than being a traditional dealer, he will be advising, researching and helping collectors manage their holdings.

Correction:Dec. 1, 2014

A report in the Inside Art column on Friday about the Frick Collection’s acquisition of a self-portrait by the 17th-century Baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo misstated the relationship of Henry Clay Frick and Dr. Henry Clay Frick II, who inherited the painting and whose widow recently decided to give it to the Frick Collection. Dr. Frick was Frick’s grandson, not his son.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C30 of the New York edition with the headline: A New Home at the Frick for a Rare Murillo Work. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe